“Can’t Keep Quiet”: The Politics of The Beatles and Bob Dylan in the 1960s

“Can’t Keep Quiet”: The Politics of The Beatles and Bob Dylan in the 1960sReese 1

Sociologist and former Students for a Democratic Society president

Todd Gitlin stated in The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage, his memoiric history of

the 1960s, when it was over, “lingering images of nobility and violence,

occasional news clips of Martin Luther King, Jr., and John F. Kennedy, Beatles

and Bob Dylan retrospectives, [are] the jumble of images this culture shares

instead of a sense of continuous, lived history.” “The Sixties:” he muses, are

“a collage of fragments scooped together as if a whole decade took place in an

instant.”1 There are two icons, the Beatles and Bob Dylan, who stand out of

this fray and together they created a whole new direction for music during

this transitory period in United States history, and by extension, the World.

In order to understand what drove them to create this new course for music,

the political upheaval of the decade must be realized.

From the onset, the nineteen sixties in the United States seemed

destined to be politically charged, seeded in the turmoil of the fifties with

its McCarthyism, racial discord, and a phenomenon which, in 1949, was given

the appellation ‘rhythm and blues.’ 2 The Sixties opened with a statement;

this decade is going to be one of political turmoil. The Woolworth’s lunch

counter sit-in in Greensboro, North Carolina in February 1960 was only one of

1 Todd Gitlin, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage (New York: Bantam Books, 1987),3.2 While not the beginning of the so called ‘Rock and Roll Revolution’, themoment when the name changed from ‘race music’ in the Billboard charts to‘Rhythm & Blues’ is an appropriate beginning point in terms of this paper.Rhythm and Blues admittedly had a way to go before it would be recognizable asthe rock and roll it would later be associated with, but the framework was inplace for a musical upheaval. James Miller, Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock andRoll, 1947-1977 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), 44.


the first in a series of momentous events.3 This was the decade which brought

the world the presidency of John F. Kennedy, who gave the world the Peace Corp

as a way of trying to put to rest negative American stereotypes the world had

developed, in turn, he hoped this would provide a way for post-War America to

give back to the world.4 That same year, Berlin was divided in two by the

building of a wall destined to carry its name, cutting the city, and seemingly

the world, in two. Cuba had a missile crisis, launching the world to the edge

of nuclear warfare, Martin Luther King Jr., had a dream. This is also a

decade defined by not only the great men who lived in it, but the great men

who were assassinated in it as well. Dorothy Rabinowitz, in the documentary

1968 with Tom Brokaw phrased it best, “Children—it was noted at the time—didn’t

know that leaders actually died a natural death. They began to think that

everyone was assassinated. It was one of the dark, gothic terrible jokes of

the time.”5 John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Bobby

Kennedy, all great men assassinated in this decade, even Lee Harvey Oswald,

the man who assassinated JFK, was struck down. Throughout the entire decade

and beyond the Vietnam War escalates abroad and on American soil finally boils

over in protests and riots. Los Angeles erupted in race riots in 1965, and

finally in August, 1969, a congregation of hippies gathered in the name of

peace in a field in Bethel, New York, the festival called Woodstock forever

associated with the Sixties. 3 “Freedom Struggle,” Separate is Not Equal,http://americanhistory.si.edu/Brown/history/6-legacy/freedom-struggle-2.html.4 Peace Corp, “Peace Corp Fact Sheet 2009,”http://www.peacecorps.gov/multimedia/pdf/about/pc_facts.pdf.5 1968 with Tom Brokaw, Produced by Carl H. Lindahl, David McKillop, KnuteWalker, 120 minutes. Peacock Productions, 2007, DVD.


Even with this veritable panorama of pandemonium, the idea that a

popular music band would contribute to the political arena in any regard

especially the most popular band of the times, The Beatles went beyond

anyone’s expectations. Bob Dylan also joined into this ‘denying of

expectations,’ elevating folk music into the realm of rock and roll which

elicited near rioting from the folk music camp. Because of their symbiotic

connection, the Beatles and Bob Dylan were able to break down several barriers

in music, Dylan brought the electric guitar to forefront of folk music and the

Beatles brought politics to rock and roll.

In fact, it was not only that they brought new depth to each of their

genres, folk and rock, they brought the two together, an inconceivable notion

in the mid-sixties, such were the division which existed between the two

fields. When explaining the two genres as they existed before the Beatles and

Bob Dylan, Christopher Hill, Professor of History at the University of

Colorado at Colorado Springs, stated that rock and folk were completely

divided. Folk was political, and rock, popular, a line divided them and there

was no crossing the line.6 Dylan knew the rift existed, “You see, there was a

lot of hypocrisy all around, people saying it had to be either folk or rock.

But I knew it didn’t have to be that way.”7

John Orman adds a third element to the discussion. First he shifts the

discussion into the realm of cultures; he states there were three distinct

cultures, rock, radical political, and the dope culture, Orman states, “The

6 Christopher Hill, Ph.D., interviewed by author, September 18, 2008.7 Anthony Scaduto, Bob Dylan: An Intimate Biography (New York: Castle Books, 1971),175.


idea was that all three cultures were truly one and they formed a new American

‘revolution’ in terms of economic, political, religious, and social values.”8

The radical political culture, who mostly fell in line with the folk music

genre, saw rock artists as those, “who had the power to change society [due to

status and position in public eye] but who opted to sell out the

‘revolution’.”9 The Beatles and Dylan whether they realized it or not were

trying to unite all three cultures.

The group which was to influence the music of the United States so

profoundly was not from America and with the exception of George Harrison, had

not even visited the States prior to becoming a band. The Beatles began as

the Quarrymen in Liverpool, England, the brainchild of John Lennon. In May of

1960 the group changed its name first to Long John and the Silver Beatles,

then, The Silver Beatles, and finally, simply, The Beatles.10 Under this

moniker the group, consisting of John, Paul, Stu Sutcliffe, and Pete Best

first travelled to Germany in August of 1960 to play in the Indra, then the

Kaiserkeller and finally, in 1961, the Top Ten, all clubs in the Reeperbahn

district of Hamburg.11 Here, the Beatles learned to engage a crowd; as they

were paid to play until two or three in the morning it was crucial they hone

their skills as both musicians and as entertainers to keep the patrons

absorbed and drinking. While playing at the Kaiserkeller the Beatles met

Astrid Kirchherr who ultimately influenced them immensely, Astrid is a black8 John Orman, The Politics of Rock Music (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1984), 156-158.9 Ibid., 158.10 Philip Norman, Shout!: The Beatles in Their Generation (New York: MJF Books, 1981),74.11 Bob Spitz, The Beatles: The Biography (New York: Little, Brown and Company,2005), 206, 208.; Norman, 112.


and white photographer and took some of the most striking pictures of the

early Beatles during their tenure in Germany. Stu, enamored with the German

girl, left the band so he could stay in Germany, partially to attend art

school, but ultimately he proposed to Astrid. Tragically, Stu died on April

10, 1962 of a possible brain aneurism.12

Upon their return from Germany, the Beatles were stronger musicians and

much more viable as a group.13 They developed a fan base and caught the

attention of a local shopkeeper’s son and opportunist, Brian Epstein. Epstein

went to see the Beatles at the Cavern where they had a standing lunch gig, he

knew immediately they were going to be a success, a ‘gut feeling’ he called

it. He worked relentlessly to book them and get them recorded, his search led

to Parlophone producer George Martin. Martin would ultimately produce all of

the Beatles albums as a group. Martin deemed Pete Best not strong enough of a

drummer for an album, thus the decision was made to bring Ringo into the group

and oust Pete. 14 Also during this ephemeral period the hard rocking Teddy Boy

image of the Beatles was whitewashed to make them more acceptable to the

mainstream, a shift orchestrated by Brian Epstein. 15

Epstein’s endeavors were advantageous; the Beatles first number one

single in the United Kingdom was “Please, Please Me.”16 Ian MacDonald,

songwriter and record producer as well as the author of Revolution in the Head,12 Spitz, 305.13 To be more precise, the Beatles made three separate trips to Germany.14 Norman, 162.15 For more information on the Teddy Boys, see Tony Jefferson’s essay“Cultural Responses of the Teds” which appears in part in Hall, Stuart andTony Jefferson, eds. Resistance through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in post-war Britain.London: Hutchinson of London, 1975.16 Norman, 176.


described “Please, Please Me” as a Lennon-McCartney song of “contrived

hysteria” through which “tension mounted graphically through a syncopated

bridge of call-and-response between Lennon and a powerfully harmonized

McCartney and Harrison, before exploding in three parts on the chorus.”17 The

Beatles’ first song to reach the charts however was “Love Me Do” in 1962,

which managed to make it to number seventeen on the United Kingdom singles

chart.18 Nearly two years later the Beatles invaded America which would be

the beginning of a whole new era of music in a country who had become bored

with the music it had created, rock and roll.19

The Beatles made a considerable impact in rejuvenating the country’s

interest not only in its music, but also in the political machinations of the

United States. As Larry Kane said in his chronicle of the Beatles’ 1964 and

1965 tours, “Before them [the Beatles], it was unheard of for a rock group to

get politically involved in any way. After the Beatles, and especially due to

Lennon’s public activism, scores of popular music icons followed the lead, and

they continue to do so.”20 Rock music was not a realm of activism; activism

belonged to the folk musicians with their topical songs and hootenannies.21 In

the early Sixties, the most influential names in Folk music were Joan Baez,

Pete Seeger, and Bob Dylan. While Bob Dylan had come to the folk scene later17 Ian MacDonald, Revolution in the Head: The Beatles’ Records and the Sixties (Chicago:Chicago Review Press, 2007), 63.18 Ibid., 59.19 Garry Berman, “We’re Going to See the Beatles!”: An Oral History of Beatlemania as Told by theFans Who Were There (Santa Monica: Santa Monica Press, 2008), 28-29.20 Larry Kane, Ticket to Ride: Inside the Beatles’ 1964 & 1965 Tours that Changed the World (NewYork: Penguin Books, 2003),190-191.21 Hootenanny being defined as “a meeting of folk singers, especially forpublic entertainment.” Ronald Cohen, Folk Music: The Basics (New York: Routledge,2006), 153.


than the rest, he had already proved that he was a force to be reckoned with

as a songwriter.

Bob Dylan, born Robert Zimmerman in 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota was raised

in Hibbing, Minnesota.22 When still in high school he and a few other boys

started a rock and roll band called the Golden Chords which played at school

dances and talent shows. Bob eventually left the band as his tastes leaned

more toward Little Richard, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, and Jimmy Reed, whereas

the band was more interested in mainstream, white artists.23 Throughout high

school Bob was to be found in one band or another, though never for long, for

he would eventually leave citing musical differences.

In September of 1959, Zimmerman joined the ranks of millions of high

school graduates who annually trek to college and enrolled in the University

of Minnesota’s art school. Bob attended because of a state scholarship and

lived in the Jewish fraternity house on campus. He associated himself less

and less with the straight-laced college and his Jewish heritage (for which he

possibly faced discrimination) and more he was to be found at The Ten O’Clock

Scholar, a diner which catered to the folk scene in town. According to

Anthony Scaduto, Bob asked the owner if he could play there, and the owner

asked him his name, quickly the young man replied Bob Dylan. Until he

withdrew from college, he was still going by Zimmerman, once he withdrew from

college, except in his hometown, the world knew this man as Bob Dylan. Even

at this early point, his friends can remember his writing songs.24 Also at

22 Cohen, 142.23Scaduto, 6,7.24 Scaduto, 8.


this point in his life that he started to dissociate himself from his rock

roots as they were unacceptable in the folk circles in which he was now being

admitted. Through these folkies he was introduced to his next idol, Woody

Guthrie.25

One acquaintance said of Dylan, “He was totally devoted to music, to his

guitar and harmonica, and to Guthrie most of all.”26 In 1961, Dylan decided

to hitchhike to New York to visit Guthrie. Upon arrival in New York, Dylan

went straight to Greenwich Village to the Café Wha? where he said to operator

Manny Roth, “Just got here from the West. Name’s Bob Dylan. I’d like to sing

a few songs. Can I?” Roth let him. Along with singing at the Wha? Dylan

also began spending time at the Folklore center through which he obtained a

gig at Gerde’s Folk City in Greenwich Village on April 11, 1961 this turned

out to be the defining moment of his career. The next night, he was to meet

Joan Baez which would ultimately be a highly significant relationship for

both.

Dylan did not forget his purpose in coming to New York though. He

started visiting Guthrie in New Jersey regularly. Dylan did something very

uncharacteristic for himself, he listened. Eventually he started playing for

Guthrie. Guthrie commented once after Dylan left, “That boy’s got a voice.

Maybe he won’t make it by his writing, but he can sing it. He can really sing

it. … Bobby Dylan is a folk singer. Oh, Christ, he’s a folk singer all

25 Ibid., 26-41.26 Ibid., 42.


right.”27 “This is what made me different. I played all the folk songs with a

rock and roll attitude,” Dylan states.28

Shortly after Dylan’s debut at Gerde’s, he signed his first record

contract for his album, Bob Dylan, which would not be released until March of

1962.29 Along with standards such as “Man of Constant Sorrow,” Bob included

his rendition of “House of the Risin’ Sun” and the song we wrote for Woody

Guthrie, “Song to Woody.” Bob Dylan was not a successful album. Luckily, the

much more commercially lucrative The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan and The Times They Are A-

Changin’ both followed in 1963. While Dylan was not to have any top ten

singles from these albums, others were to have great success with his

material. Even so, Dylan became a celebrity within his own right. 30

However, according to Dylan his momentous journey toward a new era in

folk music began on a road in Colorado. He describes his revelation in this

manor,

I had heard the Beatles in New York when they first hit, then whenwe were driving through Colorado we had the radio on and eight ofthe top ten songs were Beatles songs. In Colorado! I Wanna HoldYour Hand, all those early ones. They were doing things nobodyelse was doing. Their chords were outrageous, just outrageous andtheir harmonies made it all valid. You could only do that withother musicians. Even if you’re playing your own chords you haveto have other people playing with you. That was obvious. And itstarted me thinking about other people. … I knew they werepointing the direction of where music had to go. … It seemed to mea definite line was being drawn. This was something that neverhappened before. It was outrageous, and I kept it in my mind.You see, there was a lot of hypocrisy all around, people saying it

27 Scaduto, 56.28 Miller, 223.29 Howard Sounes, Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan (New York: Grove Press,2002), 113.30 Cohen, 142.


had to be either folk or rock. But I knew it didn’t have to belike that.31

Without ever having met, the Beatles were influencing the “most widely

admired young folk singer and songwriter” to form a rock ‘n’ roll band, and in

doing so shattered the division which existed between the two genres.32

The influence did not only extend to Dylan. Shortly before the Beatles

left for France in 1963, Paul McCartney bought a copy of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan

and for three weeks, the Beatles listened to nothing else. “We just played

it, just wore it out, the content of the song lyrics and just the attitude—it

was just incredibly original and wonderful.” stated George of the album.33

Paul and John posit this was the point that their attitude about music started

to change. Paul states, “I’m sure this kind of thing found its way into our

music, and into our lyrics, and influenced whom we were interested in, vocally

and poetically Dylan was a huge influence.”34 While John admits, “I’d started

thinking about my own emotions… instead of projecting myself into a situation,

I would try to express what I felt about myself. I think it was Dylan who

helped me realize that, not by any discussion or anything, but by hearing his

work.”35 Each of the three writing Beatles focuses on a different aspect of

Dylan and how they could incorporate his style into themselves. For George,

the content of Dylan’s lyrics and his overarching attitude is what made the

difference, is what would ultimately affect him the most. Paul was most

intrigued by Dylan’s vocal style and his poetic lyrics and John was moved to31 Scaduto, 175.32 Miller, 218.33 Sounes, 155.34 Spitz, 534.35 Ibid.


write about what he was going through rather than a fictitious event. The man

whom none had met had already vastly influenced and changed both their writing

and singing styles and their outlook on their selves.

It would be a year later, in 1964 in Dylan’s new hometown of New York

City that the Beatles and Bob Dylan met, resulting in a life-long friendship

between Dylan, Lennon and Harrison. “When I met Dylan,” Lennon recalls, “I

was quite dumbfounded.”36 While their first meeting could have been one of

intellectual shock, it has been overshadowed by Dylan introducing the Beatles

to marijuana. While the Beatles had tried it before, it was “just the

sticks,” most likely a mixture of marijuana stems and oregano. For the

Beatles, this new domain would alter their perception and direction both

personally and as musicians. Paul related later, “We were smoking dope,

drinking wine and generally being rock ‘n rollers, and having a laugh, you

know, and surrealism.”37

This surrealism had a profound and enduring impact on the developing

musicians. Howard Sounes stated in his biography on Bob Dylan, “The

subsequent influence the musicians had on one another had an important effect

on popular music as Bob integrated Beatle-like use of rock ‘n’ roll into his

music and the Beatles began to write lyrics that had the depth and seriousness

of Dylan songs.”38 This was the end of the Beatles’ “cute period,” as Dylan

termed it and the beginning of something new.39 It was through and because of

this relationship that the Beatles ventured into such realms previous36 Ibid., 535.37 Ibid., 535-536.38 Sounes, 161.39 Miller, 231.


unknowable to them, such as their forays into political statements, both

verbally and through visual representations such as their Yesterday and Today

album cover. “Bob Dylan singlehandedly showed the Beatles a new way to

fashion themselves… His influence, in short, was a matter of attitude,” Norman

Miller states in his history of rock, “Under the influence of marijuana and

Bob Dylan’s unkempt persona, the Beatles would turn it [rock and roll] into

something else again: a music of introspective self-absorption, a medium fit

for communicating autobiographical intimacies, political discontents,

spiritual elation, inviting an audience, not to dance, but to listen quietly,

attentively, thoughtfully.”40

The Beatles did not just invite their audience to listen, they dared

them. Starting as early as Beatles for Sale, they included tracks such as “I’m a

Loser,” which while still upbeat, begs for the listener to take the time to

listen to John cry, “I’m a loser/ I’m not what I appear to be.”41 Later, on

the Help! soundtrack, Lennon, sounding much like Dylan, issues a guttural

“You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away.” By the time they press Rubber Soul, over

half the songs on the album are meant to be listened to honestly. “Norwegian

Wood,” “Nowhere Man,” “Michelle,” “Girl,” “I’m Looking Through You,” “In My

Life,” and “If I Needed Someone,” are all songs from the so-called rock and

roll album Rubber Soul, released in a watershed year in music, 1965, yet all

eight of these song are quiet, introspective songs. These songs are not the

hard rocking songs of the Beatles of yore; this is a new direction for the

Beatles. 40 Ibid., 226, 227-228. (Emphasis in the original)41 Beatles, The. Help!. Parlophone, 1965.


The change in music which occurred in 1965 is indelible. The Beatles

broke away from the ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ rock and roll image they had

accepted when they released Rubber Soul, their first album to include not only

the honest tracks mentioned above, but also songs with intricate, and often

obscure, meanings. For example, the song “We Can Work it Out” is about a rift

in Paul and Jane Asher’s relationship. Ian MacDonald described this song,

“With its tense suspensions and irregular phrase-lengths, it shows him

[McCartney] at his most Lennonish, directly expressing the forcefulness of his

lyric. Lennon’s middle eight- one of his cleverest- shifts focus from

McCartney’s concrete reality to a philosophical perspective…”42

In the words of John Lennon however, the song becomes a bit more candid

and additionally it develops into an issue of character traits, “You’ve got

Paul writing ‘we can work it out’, real optimistic, and me, impatient, [with]

‘Life is very short, And there’s no time, For fussing and fighting my

friend.”43 Anyway it is understood, the song was a fundamental departure from

‘She Loves You’ of 1963. In two years they had started with “She loves you,

yeah yeah yeah,” and managed to find their way to “I’m looking through you,

you’re not the same.”44 The Beatles were not the only ones who were on a

journey of rediscovery though.

The impact of Rubber Soul was immediate in the music world. It drove

Brian Wilson, then of the Beach Boys, to the studio. “I was so blown out that

42 MacDonald, 171.43 Steve Turner, A Hard Day’s Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song (New York:Harper, 2005), 87.44 Beatles, The. Past Masters, Volume One. Apple, 1988.; Beatles, The. Rubber Soul.Parlophone, 1965.


I said, ‘If I ever do anything in my life, I’m going to make that good an

album.’ And so we did.”45 It was after this revelation that they made the

much acclaimed, Pet Sounds. Not only the Beatles and The Beach Boys, but also

Bob Dylan broke new ground in music during this period.

Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited, released in 1965, is folk’s first all

electric album. Dylan begins Highway 61 Revisited mercilessly. Opening with a

hard driving drum, tambourine, an organ, and of course, an electric guitar,

‘Like a Rolling Stone’ is unforgiving for six minutes. For six minutes, it

breaks every single rule of folk music. When Dylan wails, “How does it FEEL?”

the impression is he is asking the folk listener, the purist, what they think

of the new direction he is trying to take folk, the “complete unknown.”46 The

next track is no less threatening. “Tombstone Blues” is even more of a

driving, syncopated, rhythmic invention, which is laced with electric guitar

riffs. Finally, “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry” is a

audible reprieve after the previous rock tracks. Even “It Takes a Lot to

Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry” does not pander to the genre of folk; it is a

true blues track. The reprieve does not last however and the listener is

immediately launched back to rock with “From a Buick 6,” then a bluesy, piano

driven “Ballad of a Thin Man,” and then back to rock for “Queen Jane

Approximately,” “Highway 61 Revisited,” and “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues.”

The most enigmatic piece of the album, as far as categorization is considered

comes from the last track, “Desolation Row.” The last track on the album45 “Behind the Scenes: From Dylan recording ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ to Arethabefore she was famous, indelible images of the greatest singers of all time,”Rolling Stone, November 27, 2008, 111-118. 46 “Like a Rolling Stone,” Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited, Columbia, 1965.


lingers for over eleven minutes and does not have the driving drumbeat of the

previous tracks, instead, the beat is kept by a guitar, while another guitar

is played Spanish style, and a bass adds depth. Dylan’s harmonica is notably

lacking throughout most of the song, though his vocals make up any perceived

deficit. “Desolation Row” is Dylan’s taunt to the music community, listen,

understand, do better. The challenge, in general, was not well received, said

one fan after a concert in Newcastle, England, when asked about Dylan’s new

sound, “I think he’s conceding to some sort of popular taste. I think it’s a

bad thing. I think he’s prostituting himself.”47

The reaction to the Newport Folk Festival that year was even livelier

than the reception to Highway 61 Revisited. The Festival, where Dylan headlined,

was a gathering he had been attending for the last several years, but never so

eventfully. Even though “Like a Rolling Stone” had just been released and was

an electric song, no one expected Dylan to play with an electric band,

including Dylan. His decision to play with a band came at the last minute.

Jonathan Taplin, a roadie at the time, explains how he perceived Dylan’s

decision, “Dylan just got a hair up his ass: Well fuck them if they think they can keep

electricity out of here, I’ll do it. On a whim he said he wanted to play electric.”48

Dylan was undeterred by the common belief that electric did not belong

at Newport. He auditioned a band at the festival and after a cursory run

through of the songs, debuted the band at the festival. This, Oscar Brand

states, “was the antithesis of what the festival was supposed to be doing.47No Direction Home: Bob Dylan. Produced by Jeff Rosen, Susan Lacy, Nigel Sinclair,Anthony Wall, Martin Scorsese, Paul G. Allen and Jody Patton. Paramount,2005. DVD.48 Sounes, 180-181. (Emphasis in the original)


The electric guitar represented capitalism… the people who were selling

out.”49 To consider Dylan’s electric guitar as a way of selling out is an

interesting juxtaposition considering that the folk festival was held in

affluent Newport, Rhode Island. To Pete Seeger, one of the founders of the

festival, and arguably one of the godfathers of folk, the sound was atrocious

and that is why he took issue with Dylan’s performance. “I was absolutely

screaming mad, you couldn’t understand a goddamn word of what they were

singing,”50 Seeger later recalls, he even threatened to cut the cables with an

ax, but could not find one.

To the relief of some purists and rancor of others in the audience, the

band and Dylan, left the stage after only a three song set, partially because

this was all they previously had time to rehearse and partly because of the

reception they had received from the congregation. Dylan sat backstage,

“visibly shaken,” and refused to return for another set, though most other

artists had been on for an hour or more.51 After some cajoling, he finally

did return to the stage and played an acoustic set. “It was really pretty

revolutionary,” Mickey Jones remembers fondly in the Martin Scorsese

documentary, No Direction Home, “in the fact that here was someone that everyone

loved—and they didn’t like what he was doing—and they were showing it.”52

Generally Dylan did not mind what others thought of what he did.

Miller, in Flowers in the Dustbin, articulates it best, “What Dylan in 1965 managed

to do was blast himself free from the intellectual complacency of the folk49 Ibid., 182.50 Ibid.51 Ibid., 182,183.52 No Direction Home: Bob Dylan.


scene while daring the rock fans to listen.… A poet and a prophet, he would

write out of his own life, with no apparent regard for the pieties prevailing

in society.”53 Dylan did not want to be fenced into a singular type of music.

Not in 1965, and not throughout his career. Dylan has reinvented himself more

times than Madonna, sometimes successfully, others not, but Dylan is always

true to himself. One thing that Bob Dylan has consistently not wanted to be

involved in though, is politics.

Bob Dylan, perhaps more than any contemporary artist, isresponsible for the phenomenon of ‘political rock’ Dylan liberatedthe lyrics and established the basic parameters for political rockmusic early in his career…. Of course, the irony of this is thefact that Dylan has never been political. Politics, politicalstands, commitment, mass movements have all been foreign to Dylan.When Dylan made his switch from pure folk to rock and dropped mostof his political themes, his political fans and his pure folk fanscried that Dylan was selling out. But the question remains, Howcould Dylan sell out when he never committed in the first place?54

Thus, Bob Dylan presents the analyst with a conflation. How can he be

both the artists most responsible for political rock and at the same time a

person who is completely non-political, both rock and folk, acoustic and

electric? As to the question of folk and rock, the music industry created a

whole new genre in which to fit the likes of artists such as Dylan, The Byrds,

and even to an extent, The Animals. Songs such as “The House of the Rising

Sun” were directly inspired by Dylan and this gave the Animals a place in this

category. Dylan is to thank for the fact that it is no longer out of place to

see an artist switch between acoustic and electric. The only real question

left is the issue of an artist writing highly political songs yet not being

53 Miller, 225. (Emphasis in the original)54 Orman, 85.


political, and even stating (to Phil Ochs) that, “The stuff you’re writing is

bullshit, because politics is bullshit. It’s all unreal.”55 Yet, this is the

man who had previously written, “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” “Blowin’ in

the Wind,” and “Chimes of Freedom,” all three songs of protest and rife with

political statements, and only a sampling of songs which he wrote that

included ‘political’ messages. Thus, the politics of the man who seemingly

dislikes politics must be examined.

In “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” Dylan warns, “Come senators,

congressmen, please head the call/ Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up

the hall/ For he that gets hurt will be he that has stalled.”56 Dylan not

only calls politicians to action, but alerts them that those who do not act

are those who are going to suffer consequences. He continues to tell parents

to either accept what is going on, learn to understand it, or else, get out of

the way of progress.

“Blowin’ in the Wind” is even more of an overt political statement.

From the very first the listener is forced to contemplate complex notions of

equality and justice, it begins, “How many roads must a man walk down/ Before

you call him a man?” Dylan does not ease up on the listener throughout, “Yes,

and how many years can some people exist/ Before they’re allowed to be free?”

Then in the next verse, “Yes, and how many deaths will it take ‘til he knows/

That too many people have died?”57 Most likely because of the hard-hitting

themes of equality and justice, “Blowin’ in the Wind” has hundreds of known

55 Scaduto, 176.56 “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A-Changin’, Columbia, 1964.57 “Blowin’ in the Wind,” Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A-Changin’, Columbia, 1964.


covers and it has been translated into several languages. Nonetheless, Dylan

did not write the song with perpetuity in mind. Marvin Bronstein, in an

interview, asked Dylan if “Blowin’ in the Wind” was a breakthrough song for

him, “No, no, it was—do you mean the most honest and straight thing which I

thought I ever put across? That reached popularity, you mean. There’s been a

few. “Blowin’ in the Wind” was to a degree, but I was a kid. I didn’t know

anything about anything, at that point. I just wrote that, and—that was it,

really.”58 It is a testament to Dylan’s genius that as a kid he wrote one of

the most poignant protest songs of the sixties, and of the civil rights

movements, then dismisses it.

“Chimes of Freedom” is less easily dismissible as the work of a kid who

did not know anything. One segment of the song states, “Tolling for the deaf

and blind/ Tolling for the mute/ For the mistreated mateless mother/ For the

mistitled prostitute/ For the misdemeanor outlaw/ Chained and cheated by

pursuit/ And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.”59 “Chimes of

Freedom” shows in no uncertain terms that he is a protest songwriter and he is

damned good at it. Nevertheless, Dylan did not want to be, he did not wish to

be associated with any movements, political or otherwise and he did not want

the title of protest singer. For Dylan, politics were, “instruments of the

devil.”60 Dylan, speaking in regards to politicians in 1965, stated, “They’ve

got a commodity to sell and that commodity is themselves. Politics is just a

58 Greil Marcus, Like a Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads (New York:PublicAffairs, 2005), 69. (Emphasis in the original)59 “Chimes of Freedom,” Bob Dylan, Another Side of Bob Dylan, Columbia, 1964.60 Sounes, xii.


commercial bandwagon.”61 Obviously Dylan did not realize he could have just

as easily been talking about himself, Joan Baez, or any professional musician.

Dylan found himself in a position in 1965 where he could break away from

the politics of the folk world without leaving behind the types of songs and

topics which he appreciated. Dylan utilized rock as a tool to disseminate

himself from the conflation he had found himself wherein he was a topical

songwriter who was not political. While he did not completely dissociate

himself from the topical scene, he distanced himself enough for his folk fans

to cry that he was selling out. The Beatles, conversely, in 1965 realized

that they could incorporate more complex and political themes into their music

and into themselves as well.

As early as their 1964 American tour, the Beatles were verbalizing their

political opinions, Paul, on the flight to Houston, was asked by reporter

Larry Kane what his sentiments were on the death of United States President

John F. Kennedy, he replied,

I just thought the whole thing was idiotic, y’know, ‘causeanyone who wanted to shoot Kennedy, ‘cause, y’know, from my point ofview, and from a lot of people in England’s point of view, he was thebest president that America has had for an awful long time, y’know.And he was creating a great image for America, and he seemed to bedoing great things, y’know. He seemed to have a good head on hisshoulders, y’know, sensible. And it was good for everyone. The factthat someone bumped his off was a big, terrible big drag, y’know.Idiots, I thought.62

While not altogether articulate, what is significant is first that Kane

bothered to ask Paul of his political views and secondly that Paul bothered

to give more than a few word answer, tries to explain not what he thinks,61 Orman, 176.62Kane, 118.


but why he thinks it. Although Kane does not state whether he used this

information in his newscasts, one can only assume that he did not, not only

due to the stilted language of the statement, but also because McCartney,

by stating that Kennedy, “was the best president that America has had for

an awful long time,” implies that the previous Presidents of the United

States were incompetent.

The backlash that could have resulted by such a perceived insult

would have been on the same level as a statement another Beatle made. When

John stated in 1966 that the Beatles were, “more popular than Jesus now,”

the public outcry surged through at least two continents.63 Most

especially in the United States, the ‘Bible belt’ was aflame with Beatles

albums, pictures, and other memorabilia. Lennon, under pressure, felt it

necessary to explain his remark at a press conference, “I’m not saying

we’re better, or greater, or comparing us with Jesus as a person or God as

a thing or whatever it is, you know. I just said what I said and it was

wrong, or was taken wrong. And now all this.”64 Ironically while certain

people in the United States were not willing to drop the incident, the

Vatican accepted his apology immediately, even stating, “there is some

foundation to the latest observations of John Lennon about atheism or the

distraction of many people.”65 John had an ability to motivate with his

words which has gone completely unmatched. He utilized this ability as

63 Maureen Cleave, “How Does a Beatle Live? John Lennon Lives Like This,” inRead the Beatles: Classic and New Writings on the Beatles, Their Legacy, and Why They Still Matter, ed.June Skinners Sawyers (New York: Penguin Books, 2006), 88. 64 Ibid., 86.65 Ibid., 87.


much as he could especially toward the latter years of the 1960s when the

Beatles had achieved unprecedented success. People listened when a Beatle

talked, and they most especially listened when John spoke, or acted.

The Beatles were each awarded MBEs (Members of the British Empire) in

June of 1965, John, as a blatant statement, sent his back to the Queen in

November of 1969, protesting actions in Vietnam.66 Earlier that year, for

his honeymoon, he and Yoko Ono invited the press to their ‘Bed-In for

Peace’ at the Amsterdam Hilton which John promoted as, “a protest against

violence everywhere.”67 At the second installment of this event, in

Montreal in June, Lennon recorded one of his most memorable and successful

solo endeavors, “Give Peace a Chance,” though solo is hardly the word for

this conflagration of a song, as there are dozens of people singing on the

track. Finally, Lennon and Ono ended the year with a massive advertisement

campaign which simply said, “War is Over—If You Want It. Happy Christmas

from John and Yoko.” The billboards were posted in eleven cities

worldwide.68 Bob Spitz, author of several books on the Beatles, explains,

“John was having so much fun stirring up trouble, manipulating the press

with Yoko, that nothing, not even money and legal hassles, was important

enough to distract him.”69 While John made blatant statements, the

remaining Beatles chose to obfuscate their political sympathies within the

lyrics of their songs.

66 MacDonald, 462.67 Spitz, 828. 68 MacDonald, 458, 462.69 Spitz., 835.


Going back to Rubber Soul, George and John were instilling both

topical meaning and messages into their songs. George’s “Think for

Yourself” is, by his admission, “probably [about] the government.”70 The

opening verse is, “I’ve got a word or two/ To say about the things you do/

You’re telling all those lies/ About the good things that we can have/ If

we close our eyes.”71 The song starts off strong, as if to say, I am going

to make a political statement, and then does not follow through. By moving

the “good things that we can have” into the realm of the imaginary with the

“closing of the eyes” George takes away from the statement the song could

have made. Considering however, that he wrote “Think for Yourself” in

1964, the attempt is fantastic. The next track on the album surpasses even

what “Think for Yourself” could have been, “The Word” is an immense

psychological shift. “In effect,” Ian MacDonald states, “it marks the

climax of the group’s marijuana period: a song predicting Love Militant as

a social panacea and the accompanying rise of the ‘counterculture.’ In

this, The Beatles were ahead of their game.”72 Before the Hippies of San

Francisco had their Summer of Love, the Beatles were declaring “The Word is

Love.” They even speak to the establishment, saying, “In the beginning I

misunderstood/ But I’ve got it, the word is good… Now that I know what I

feel must be right/ I’m here to show everybody the light/ Give the world a

chance to say/ That the word is just a way”73 In this way, they are

assuring people that, while they did not understand at first, they70 Turner, 92.71 “Think For Yourself,” Rubber Soul.72 MacDonald, 179.73 “Think For Yourself,” Rubber Soul.


endeavored to comprehend, and (through the use of mind altering drugs) now

understand that love is an universal principle to which everyone should

adhere. While “The Word” seeks to turn the world on to universal love,

written when the group was simply using marijuana, “Rain,” the group’s most

successful B-side, is an example of their dalliance into the world of acid.

Seemingly a song about the weather and people’s reaction thereto,

Rain, “on another level,” Steve Turner notes in A Hard Day’s Write, “was a song

that recommended transcending the conventional categories of good and evil.

In the same way that we should be indifferent about the weather, he [John

Lennon] feels that there is a need for people to rise above their

circumstances.”74 Turner reads transcendence of good and evil in the

lyrics of the song and Ian MacDonald sees a delineation between

generations, “Rain is the first pop song to draw an ‘us and them’ line

between the children of Leary’s psychedelic revolution and the supposedly

unknowing materialism of the parent culture.”75 While each interpretation

of the song is valid, the beauty of Lennon’s songwriting is that he does

leave so much room for interpretation, especially in his early work.

Lennon pleads through the song, “I can show you, that when it starts to

rain/ Everything’s the same/ I can show you/ I can SHOW you/ Rain, I don’t

mind/ Shine, the weather’s fine/ Can you hear me/ That when it rains and

shines/ It’s just a state of mind.”76 He desperately is trying to make the

listener understand that rain or shine (or whatever attributes the listener

74 Turner, 102.75 MacDonald, 197.76 “Rain,” The Beatles, Past Masters, Volume Two, Apple, 1988.


chooses to ascribe to ‘rain’ and ‘shine’) one must be positive; one must

understand that their outlook on life is solely determined by themselves.

From this existential song on transcending the everyday, the first song on

the Beatles’ next album, Revolver, released in 1966, is very terrestrial.

“Taxman,” is a raucous outcry against the English taxation system.

Written by George Harrison, “Taxman” lashes out for the first time at

living people, namely, Harold Wilson and Edward Heath, who, aside from one

being a current and the other a future Prime Minister, the two men were

also the leaders of the two major political parties in Britain. “We were

actually giving most (of our money) away to taxes,” George stated

sardonically, “It was, and still is, typical. Why should this be so?”77

Aside from the obvious political implications of this number, it is

“interpreted as symbolizing a new start in the group’s recording career,”

according to Ian MacDonald. He explains this rationale, “With its studio

verité introduction, TAXMAN was a natural choice for the opening track of

Revolver, where its shouted count in recalled the beginnings of Please, Please

Me,” the group’s first album.78 Thus begins the most overtly political

period of the Beatles’ career.

While their next album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band was not an

overtly political album, in that the tracks on the album were not trying to

convey a message, the backlash which resulted from this highly innovative

album can indeed be classified as political. “With a Little Help From my

Friends,” Ringo’s singing contribution to the album was singled out for its77 Turner, 103.78 MacDonald, 201. (emphasis in the original)


mention of “getting high” by then Maryland Governor, soon-to-be Vice

President, Spiro T. Agnew. Agnew launched a “banning crusade” across the

United States effectively removing the playful number from airwaves.

Further furor erupted over the song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” simply

because the initials of the song are, LSD. Critics saw heroin abuse as the

true meaning behind “Fixing a Hole,” in “She’s Leaving Home” the “man from

the motor trade” was interpreted as an abortionist.79 And for the first

time, the BBC (British Broadcasting Company) banned a Beatles song, “A Day

in the Life” for it’s “overt” drug references.80

Despite the fact that the album was embroiled in controversy,

Christopher Porterfield, wrote in his Time magazine article entitled “Pop

Music: The Messengers,” “All the success of the past two years were a

foreshadowing of Sgt. Pepper, which more than anything else dramatizes, note

for note, word for word, the brilliance of the new Beatles.”81 While his

esteem for Sgt. Pepper’s is well garnered, it can be argued that the previous

albums were actually some of the Beatles best albums. Back to the subject

to of Sgt. Pepper’s though, another critic, felt that the “album [is one] of

special effects, dazzling but ultimately fraudulent.”82 Though he viewed

the special effects of the album as fraudulent, they effectively changed

the rules for music, not only for music, but also in the realm of album

art.

79 “She’s Leaving Home,” The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,Parlophone, 1967.80 Norman, 293-294.81 Christopher Porterfield, “Pop Music: The Messengers,” Sawyers, 105.82 Richard Goldstein, “We Still Need the Beatles, but…,” Sawyers, 99.


The artwork of the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is a statement. They

wanted this album to be a dramatic departure from their prior selves and

they symbolized this not only in their music, but also on the cover of the

album. Included on the album cover are the likenesses of Carl Jung,

Aleister Crowley (an occultist), Sigmund Freud, Marilyn Monroe, even Stu

Sutcliffe and Bob Dylan. However, the most telling of what the Beatles

intended to symbolize with this album was the wax figurines of their mop-

top selves standing next to their flamboyantly dressed ‘new’ selves. “The

Beatles are encouraging us to re-evaluate who they are,” one Beatles

scholar disseminates as the heart of the art.83 The problem the Beatles

encountered with revolutionizing an industry however is those who are bound

to try and duplicate their efforts. The Rolling Stones, tried in vain with

their album, Their Satanic Majesties Request, but it did not make near the impact.

And suddenly, Sgt. Pepper’s look-a-like albums overflowed from record stores

shelves. “These covers [of Beatles albums] became highly influential within

the popular music community,” Ian Inglis states in his explorative essay on

the album art of the Beatles, “ideas and styles derived from them were

rapidly disseminated and imitated.”84 Into this sea of psychedelic color

the fed up Beatles released their double album, The Beatles, commonly known

as the White Album. In the riot of color, once again, the Beatles stood out

with their all white album cover.

83Ian Inglis, “‘Nothing You Can See That Isn’t Shown’: The Album Covers ofthe Beatles,” Popular Music Vol. 20, No. 1 (2001): 83-97, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/,88.84 Ibid., 85.


The White Album struck new ground in several places, the all white

cover, the fact that it was the first double album for the Beatles, and

following in the course which they had been setting for themselves for the

last several albums, they began this album with a declaration. The first

song on is “Back in the USSR,” recorded in the styles of the Beach Boys and

Chuck Berry, this energetic song fueled many fires in the United States and

caused the John Birch Society to label the Beatles as advocates of

Communism.85 To Paul, the song is much more benign, “In my mind, it’s just

about a (Russian) spy who’s been in America for a long time and he’s become

very American but when he gets back to the USSR he’s saying ‘Leave it ‘til

tomorrow to unpack my case, Honey, disconnect the phone.’ and all that, but

to Russian women.”86 No matter Paul’s interpretation of the song, it was

rather tasteless for when they recorded it, Russia was invading

Czechoslovakia, which contributed to this song’s poor reception.87 The

point is they were willing to talk about Russia in a Rock song, something

no one else had done before.

Noam Chomsky, one of the great minds of our century, summed up why

this phenomenon was so appalling to the ‘establishment.’ “People who were

normally supposed to be apathetic and obedient and passive [the young

people] were actually entering the political arena to press their own

demands and organizing to do something about it.”88 No longer could the

85 MacDonald, 309.86 Turner, 150.87 MacDonald, 309.88 Noam Chomsky, US vs. John Lennon. Produced by David Leaf. 99 minutes.Lionsgate, 2006. DVD.


young people be relied upon to be passive and malleable, suddenly, the

younger generation had leaders and causes and demands. This idea did not

end with the breakup of the Beatles in the early 1970s.

Even though Dylan all but “denounced his former moral fervor” in 1967

with the song, “My Back Pages,” the legacy of what he started lived on.89

He incited the Beatles and a generation to protest, to take a stand, to

view music differently than they had been. The Beatles in turn brought

that outlook to the masses, Lennon especially became someone who could

actually incite people to think, which started to petrify people in power.

“The authorities were terrified of him because he just had so much sway,”

publisher Felix Dennis elucidates, “Terrified. See, they weren’t

frightened of people like Mick Jagger. That was just musicians and silly

long haired gits misbehaving with too much money. Trouble with John is he—

there was some intellectual force behind the argument.”90 Lennon would not

be the last intellectual rock star to take up serious issues, he would

simple set the bar. After the assassination of Lennon in December 1980,

shoes too big to fill were left in both the music and political arenas.

With the exception of Bruce Springsteen in the 1980s, it would not be

until 1992 with the creation of Rock the Vote that the youth would once

again start participating in politics. In 1992, Rock the Vote was

responsible for 350,000 new voters and encouraged two million other young

voters turn out for the election. Because of this involvement, “On89 Robert Rosenstone, “‘The Times They Are A-Changin’: The Music of Protest,”Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Vol. 382 (1969): 131-144, JSTOR.www.jstor.org/, 133.90 Felix Dennis, US vs. John Lennon.


Election Day, these young people reverse a 20-year cycle of declining

participation with a 20 percent increase in youth turnout compared to the

previous Presidential election.”91 Since Rock the Vote’s first year, music

has gained outspoken political advocates such as Madonna and Bono of U2.

Both figures have stepped up to continue what the Beatles and Bob Dylan

started in the 1960s for they understand, “You just can’t keep quiet about

anything that’s going on in the world unless you’re a monk.”92 Still, I’ve

seen some outspoken monks.

91 Rock the Vote, “History of Rock the Vote,”http://www.rockthevote.com/about/history-rock-the-vote/.92 John Lennon, US vs. John Lennon.


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“Can’t Keep Quiet”: The Politics of The Beatles and Bob Dylan in the 1960s

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Transcript of “Can’t Keep Quiet”: The Politics of The Beatles and Bob Dylan in the 1960s